Some days you really aren't getting anywhere.

Good Wednesday to you, Edmonton. Yes, it’s already the middle of the week.

We were talking yesterday, and last week, and when annual crime statistics came out, about context in crime stories. Today there’s a story about a suspicious death investigation at a senior’s home fire in Old Strathcona. Some of the news stories are hinting at the fact police are looking at a suicide as the centre of the crime, which involves another’s death. This CBC story is a little more open about it.

While that wouldn’t make it anymore pleasant – it’s terrible to see people die and others forced out of their home by a fire – this little bit of context as to what might have happened helps people outside of the story know they’re safe. It’s that fear of random crime which is truly scary. And I think that’s where a lot of “tough on crime” talk comes from. Let’s put the context in EVERY crime story, not just as a smaller add-on somewhere else in the newspaper or newscast.

Unfortunately, in a lot of crime stories, without much detail as to what happened you can be left with a feeling that you’re in danger just being in Edmonton, or a certain neighbourhood. It shows how reporting right now (RIGHT NOW!) is fraught with the chances of fearmongering. Police have to be forthcoming with details, and they aren’t always. Sometimes, police are still investigating as newsrooms are working on their second, third, umpteenth version of the story.

We’re more likely to get details, information, and context, at a court case. But, by that point, people usually remember the first story or two about a crime as chosen by newsrooms (make no mistake, there’s no objectivity about selecting one crime over the dozens that happen each day). And, since not every newsroom has a constant presence at the courts, the initial stories usually get more play.

Working on a breaking news story for a day or more might be the best way newsrooms can get out information in a timely manner and avoid leaving any danger up to the imagination. It also means they have time to seek out good, reliable sources of information, challenge people who only seem to be trying to get into the news for a quote, be more careful with sidebar and spin-off stories, and truly be a part of the community they want to serve.

You don’t go around trying to frighten your friends and neighbours, nor would they talk to you a whole lot if you were vague about everything. Why do we allow our news coverage to be vague?

It’s time for you and me to ask newsrooms for a better level of crime coverage. We don’t need them to slap together a story, we need them to dig in and tell us why the stories are important, why the story matters, who and what is shaping our city. We need to demand a better discussion about crime in Edmonton.

Now, let’s see what’s happening in the rest of a pretty safe Edmonton.

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Arena blackmail. Yeah, the “b” word is out there.

Jumping back to homicides for a minute, profiles of the victims can sometimes be good stories. They put faces and history to names and images that sometimes float by in news coverage. They can add a human context, and be, in of themselves, interesting stories about people who live and die in our city. Two such profiles are found in the Journal today; a homeless man stabbed in Mary Burlie Park, and a man who was about to get off the streets after a decade, killed just days before finding himself in a home.

The Heritage Festival had a record-breaking weekend, which might help explain Capital Ex’s drop in attendance.

The Capitol Theatre is back in business at Fort Edmonton Park.

Check those credentials if someone calls you to buy an ad for a firefighters magazine.

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Do we really need a public hearing over a coal plant? Ugh, environmentalists are so nitpicky.

An oilsands contractor is dead after a workplace incident at Suncor’s Firebag site, north of Fort McMurray.

Fewer Alberta drivers got nabbed by RCMP traffic watches over the long weekend. That either means people are driving more safely, or they’re finally catching on to the fact police are out on the roads more on long weekends.

Everybody running to be in charge of the province seems to like the arts. So, that’s probably a good thing.

In just over a month’s time country singer Paul Brandt will headline a show at the Winspear Centre to raise more money for Slave Lake. That town was half burned to the ground this summer by wildfires.

There’s a big fraud case after a time-share collapse in Canmore, Banff, and Harvie Heights.

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If you find yourself at a Hudsons location this week, buy one of their house beers (Lumberjack Lager or Beavertail Ale) because $1 of that will go to Cross Cancer Institute.

It’s also one of those peaks of festivals that mark our summer. Here’s what I mean:

Heritage Festival (It is the Heritage Day weekend… Also, you can’t drive your car to Hawrelak for all of the fun.)

DRAW (drawing. obvs.)

Capital Ex (Woot!)

Taste of Edmonton (Deep fried deliciousness – alright, mostly deep fried.)

Food Day Canada, where restaurants create entirely Canadian-sourced meals (with Culina Mill Creek, Culina Muttart, Culina Highlands – now the Highlands Kitchen, D’Lish, The Marc, )

Yeah!

In sports…the Eskimos are home tonight to the Toronto Argonauts and the Capitals play host to the Lake County Fielders. The Fielders are having all kinds of off-field troubles this season.

On a more serious note, there will be a vigil for a Fort McMurray woman missing for the last year.

Wicked continues to play at the Jube.

Edmonton comedian Jon Mick records a live comedy album, at Wunderbar. You can not only enjoy a night of fine Edmonton comedy (and comedians) but listen for your laughter on his recording. And if you want you can help him pay for the album by throwing him a few bucks. Pretty solid night.

In music, it’s a pretty solid weekend. Sister Gray is playing New City Legion tonight with Cygents, The Frolics, and Very Dangerous Animals…Luke Doucet and the White Falcon is with Michael Rault, at the Starlite Room…Capital Ex has plenty of music, including Ace of Bass Sunday night…Taste of Edmonton also has lots of live music…

On Saturday, there are two great afternoon shows on Whyte Avenue, with Tyler Butler and F&M at the Black Dog for Hair of the Dog, and The Provincial Archive at The Empress with Montreal’s Charlotte Cornfield…

Saturday night…Toy Singers have a farewell show, with Old Uglians Jessica Jalbert, Liam Trimble, and Sugarglider at the Haven Social Club…across the city, The ARTery’s got the Beehive Bonanza Mini Market and Show, with Rocktimus Crime, Service:Fair, and Jom Comyn…

Sunday night sees a long weekend showcase at the Pawn Shop, with Matt Machete ready to blow things up…On the holiday Monday, Jeff Morris kicks off his tour at the Black Dog…

Now, to get this party started, let me present to you the new album from our pals The Fight. (The whole album is embedded here, just flip through the tracks. Oh, and buy it if you dig it.)

See you Tuesday!

p.s. Speaking of The Fight, Jom Comyn, Service:Fair, Jessica Jalbert, Liam Trimble, The Provincial Archive, Tyler Butler, and Sugarglider, this Sunday night is likely the last time you’ll be able to catch the edmontonian presents on ShawTV (channel 10 on Shaw cable), so tune in at 9pm and be able to tell your space-grandkids you saw it on an actual television set.

Hazy enough for ya?

Actually, the forest fire haze that drifted into Edmonton at the end of the weekend prompted an air quality advisory from Alberta Health Services.

A day after we heard Edmonton Transit wouldn’t be putting safety shields into buses, the man behind one of the more brutal attacks on a bus driver in recent years was in court.

You wanted more construction on streets this summer, right? Done. Speaking of summer road construction…slow down.

23,000 Edmontonians want a racism-free Edmonton. I’m sure it’s a lot more, but that’s how many signed a petition.

A survivor of a car dealership shooting is looking at his own life differently after the violent day.

The big story for newsrooms in Edmonton today is that of a young father heading to prison for shaking and choking his baby girl. I went with the Journal’s version in that link a few words back because they had a large feature on the case before sentencing, which included information on a campaign to stop parents from reacting in anger to crying babies and shaking them.

Before you head out to this summer’s Heritage Festival, download the app. It will be perfect for planning which acts to catch. And which foods to try.

The best in Edmonton theatre are all right here.

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Alberta is going to be one of the first places around to deregulate bus service. While I doubt this will affect us here in the city,the fear is that smaller towns and cities won’t be seeing Greyhound anytime soon.

Oil leak, anyone?

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HMV Canada sold for what seems like a pittance. Just $3.2-million. I mean, a picture of Billy the Kid sold for more than half that. I blame the kids and their darn downloading. Speaking of kids on the Internet…the hacking is over!

As I’ve been mentioning again and again, this weekend was my first trip down to Hawrelak Park for the Heritage Festival.

A trip worth taking.

Since I didn’t want to crack the ETS code of when the shuttles left and how frequently they were leaving I decided to bike down to Hawrelak.

It was great to see so many people walking and biking down the hills from the university to the park. It was even better to find a giant bicycle parking lot right at the front entrance.

That's a lot of bikes.

And since you couldn’t park at Heritage Fest, your other option was to ride the bus. It’s heartening to see a festival take such a “green” approach and still be so successful.

Now, I did see a bunch of cars on Groat Road zipping to the curb to drop people off, so I guess there was still some sort of driving option.

Being my first visit to this 35-year Edmonton tradition I wanted to take in some of the cultural offerings, as well as food. Since I arrived midday it was hot, so I ducked into the amphitheater to catch the 1pm show.

But I was soon hungry, so I ventured out into the park to eat some food I couldn’t easily acquire at Edmonton restaurants. That was my plan with food, anyway.

You may see a red glow in other pictures. It's from the tents.

First stop, Eritrea. I grabbed a sambussa to start things off. It’s a flaky pastry filled with beef and onion.

It also speaks to my theory that you can basically walk into any type of restaurant, any tent at a celebration like Heritage Festival, and ask for meat inside of dough. It’s universal. (Think gyro, hot dog, taco, pupusa, samosa, etc…)

Some will argue dumplings are also universal, but I’m not the biggest fan so I don’t want to talk about dumplings.

These are a beef filled dumpling, with yogurt and red sauce, called "manti." They tasted better than they looked.

Because it was so hot I decided soup was a great idea. Borneo (later to be crowned best food of the festival) offered a sweet, spicy soup they called Laksa. It was filled with a savoury broth and lots of noodles. They said shrimp too, but I only found one on top of my noodles.

Don’t get me wrong, this was a tasty soup. And the woman taking my order said it was a popular dish since they hadn’t had it at the Borneo tent for a few years.

While enjoying my soup I tried to snap a photo of a dragonfly. I wanted to give them props for eating mosquitoes. All the people bustling about chased it off. Thanks though, dragonflies!

I did, however, bump into an old colleague. It was fortuitous because she’s the kind of person who knows all the best, exotic, interesting places to eat in Edmonton. And she knew where to point me at Heritage Fest.

You already saw the dumplings I tried at one of the new pavilions, Kyrgyzstan. Her other recommendation I was to act upon was that of camel. Yes, I was going to eat some camel.

I opted for that over marinated beef hearts (from Peru).

Edmonton’s Somali community was serving up the camel meat, and from the line I could tell I wasn’t the only one interested.

It was tough, kind of fatty, but overall not a strange meat. At this point I had a partner-in-crime and he likened it to wild game, like venison, we’d be more familiar with in Alberta.

It was amazing, as a first-timer, to see how the Heritage Festival takes over Hawrelak Park. There’s also something to be said for walking through a lovely park, as opposed to over concrete, for some festivals.

The food was fantastic, as was being able to donate the unused tickets to the Edmonton Food Bank. The dancing and shows were colourful and fun. The shopping was plentiful.

But the best part was seeing Edmonton, in all its multicultural glory.

The 80+ countries and cultures all have a home in our city. Heritage Festival was the perfect way to be reminded that Edmonton, like a lot of Canada’s cities, is home to people from most of the world.

It can be easy to forget just how big the world is and how many people have come to Canada. But now I know a reminder, a bit of education really, is down in the park every August long weekend.

Over the next four days (counting Friday night) there’s a lot to do in Edmonton.

Capital Ex continues at Northlands. A Taste of Edmonton is still at Churchill Square. (Both run until Sunday.)

And, of course, Heritage Day means Hawrelak Park becomes the Heritage Festival. It’s the 35th go-round for Heritage Fest, with more than 60 countries and ethnicities represented. There will be culture and food, all three days of the weekend, in the park. Plan your adventures with the map.

The winless Eskimos play tonight. Meh.

Friday night is a really good music night. Juliette Lewis is playing the Starlite Room, Metric (and Hot Hot Heat) are at Capital Ex, Fred Eaglesmith is in Stony Plain at the Blueberry Bluegrass and Country Music Festival, and there’s that little thing called the Big Valley Jamboree over in Camrose.

On Sunday, The Old Wives are playing at Lyve on Whyte and Audio/Rocketry is at the PawnShop.

And Capital Ex has more music at the Telus Stage Saturday and Sunday. Plus, The Be Arthurs can be found at Centre Stage.

There are dinosaurs!!

ShareEdmonton had an event that really caught my eye. (What can I say, I have a soft spot for chess.) This weekend is the Edmonton Chess Festival. Checkmate.

I also keep forgetting to mention Saturday as a great farmers’ market day. You’ve got the year-round Old Strathcona version, or summer’s City Market Downtown.

It’s the end of the month, so you can check Gregg’s July movie preview and his new look at the August releases, if you’re hitting the movie theatre.

Don’t tire yourself out this weekend, since Folk Fest starts Wednesday night, and the Fringe is on the horizon.

And, because I’m going to mention it all of the time, the edmontonian and Unknown Studio will be celebrating their first birthday(s) Monday, August 23.